Donate a bale of bedding and help our rescue rats!

If you would love to help a rescue rat, but cannot physically have one, then you still can help the rodents at the CavyRescue.co.uk Rat Shelter by buying a bale of bedding.

One bale of cardboard bedding costs around £5.00 and we get through around two bales of bedding every week. That means we need to find around £40 every month just for bedding alone!

We currently have over 30 permanent ratty residents (as well as those that we take in and rehome) at the Rescue and you can help us to help them all by donating five pounds which will buy a bale of bedding for them!

We always use cardboard bedding as this is the safest material for all small furries – dusty products such as sawdust and the phenols in wood shavings can cause or exacerbate respiratory disease - which, if not fatal, certainly causes the animal a lot of pain and suffering.

CavyRescue (registered charity number 1111583) is the UK’s first and only dedicated rodent rescue charity. Since 1999 we have rescued, rehabilitated and rehomed over 2,600 small furries via the shelter and our website. The aim of the charity is to educate individuals and organisations on small animal healthcare and welfare and we regularly run successful campaigns to this effect.

To help us to continue helping the animals, all it takes is for you to click on the Buy it Now button and buy a bale of bedding for the needy animals!

What a wonderful gift for the unwanted and abandoned rodents at the Rescue!

About CavyRescue (registered charity no: 1111583)

CavyRescue was started ‘by accident’ in 1998 by us – husband and wife team Stella and Jason Hulott - when people we came in to contact with in everyday life saw how devoted we were to our six pet guinea pigs and cat.

Word spread about us and people started asking if we could take in their guinea pig or rabbit from them for one reason or another. It came somewhat as a shock as to just how many unwanted, abandoned and ill-treated animals there are and we decided to set up CavyRescue as a small animal shelter.

By 2002 we realised that there were many other independent – and registered – animal rescues that would not take in rats. Those that we knew who did take in rats, we felt did not give the rats the time and care they need. Rats are very sociable creatures who need lots of stimulation and interaction. Plus, some that had been ill-treated would obviously be prone to biting anyone that came near them and, understandably, some other rescuers were scared to go near them.

We decided to focus on rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming rats as there is a real need. The rescue is primarily self-funded (our annual costs for food, bedding and vets bills average around £16,000). As we both work fulltime from home it means we are on call for the animals virtually 24 hours a day. There are still just the two of us running the rescue as it is a bit awkward to have volunteers helping out in our house.
We deal with questions from the general public via our website and also via the telephone. The website has lots of information and FAQS on there to help people, but we never profess to be vets.

Rats come to us via: the general public; vets (eg .where they have been dumped); pet shops (eg. where they have been returned and are too old to sell; deemed ‘aggressive’; or a pregnant rat has been sold; other rescues.

Depending on their health and temperament, we will find them a new home, or they will remain with us. We do not rehome sick animals or animals with ongoing health or aggression problems.
We actively encourage people to stay in touch and many of our rehomers are now onto their ‘second’ or even ‘third’ rescue rats from us. We also have a small number of ‘foster families’ (people who have rehomed rats from us before and who we are 100% thoroughly confident of) who help out when we are bursting at the seams.

Having this hands-on experience with rats in particular, we have seen many health problems. Some are genetic, some are bad husbandry. We have built strong relationships with several vets who empathise with rats in an attempt to help find cures – or at least control mechanisms – for diseases such as respiratory disease, or mammary tumours.

We have seen success in curing/controlling/treating some diseases but what we have achieved is just the tip of the iceberg.

We are also passionate about encouraging the usage of correct bedding – sawdust and shavings can cause respiratory problems leading to death - and are pushing pet stores to action this.

In December 2004 we met with a leading pet store – Pets At Home – to discuss, among many other things, this bedding issue. In March 2005 they released a Statement which said:

“Pets Home Rat Starter Kits....
At Pets at Home Ltd we are currently reviewing our small animal product range. We are pleased to announce that the woodchips that are currently included in our rat starter kit will be replaced with safebed paper shavings from now on. We take health care issues very seriously and are grateful to CavyRescue and rat owners generally who have made some very valuable comments and suggestions.”

They have also agreed our input for their new, updated Rat, Hamster, Chinchilla and Rabbit Care Sheets.
We also campaign for various animal related issues via our website, in a bid to outlaw cruelty to all animals – especially the ones views as expendable such as rat costing £6.50 from a pet shop. Our aim is to educate people that rats are intelligent, loyal, companions who are aware of their own being.

We also help other rescues with their rehoming via our website as well as doing volunteer fund raising work for the Animal Welfare Charity (which is a registered charity that rescues and rehomes cats in Kent).
While we are now 95% a rat rescue, we have retained the name CavyRescue as it is widely recognised by people.

Our charitable aims

In October 2005 we acquired registered charity status – we did this so that we could have more credibility when educating individuals and organisations about the needs of rats and all small animals.

Our charitable aims are:

"To promote humane behaviour towards domesticated rats bred or owed as pets by providing appropriate care, protection, treatment and security for those which are in need of care and attention by reason of sickness, maltreatment, poor circumstances or ill usage and to educate the public (including those who breed and / or trade in domesticated rats) in matters pertaining to animal welfare in general and the prevention of cruelty and suffering among animals."

We also have a five year plan whereby we want to set up a dedicated, fully staffed Rat Sanctuary with an on-site vet and the facility to take in more rodents.

HELP US TO HELP THE ANIMALS! Buy Now!
Thank You!

Payment Methods

Please note that we only accept PayPal payments. You can setup a PayPal account easily at www.paypal.com/uk. It's free , secure, and only takes a couple of minutes.